#sisters............

so she tries, bit by bit. never pushing too much, or she'll shut off even further. just enough that she can crack that wall open a little bit more each time. it's a careful process, one she sometimes wonders if she's even made any progress on at all.

so something as honest as this comes as a huge surprise, though a wholly welcome one ... even if the circumstances behind it are leaving much to be desired. it's never fun when they've lost a fight, for obvious reasons, but amber seems to be taking this one particularly hard. mina can tell she blames herself for it going awry, and the quiet acceptance in her voice when she speaks all but confirms her worry. she adjusts her blanket around her shoulders, before reaching over to fix amber's, hand drifting up to brush some hair behind the younger girl's ear.

❛ i think, ❜ she starts, quietly, ❛ having control is a myth. regardless of what you do. ❜ she's well aware that's not very comforting, don't worry. but it's the truth — or at least the one she believes in. mina hasn't had control over anything that's happened to her for quite a long time, even before she woke up that night in a blood-stained dressing room with a permanent reminder carved into her chest, so it's all she can believe. but she's fallen into something like acceptance at this point, and while you could call it hopelessness — sometimes, like now, she thinks it might be for the better. to know that something going wrong doesn't have to be your fault, because you aren't in charge of what happens. for someone like amber, who's quite literally been written into the life she has ... she can understand what she must be feeling. the unending pressure of maybe this time i’ll be able to figure it out. it's eating her alive, as much as she pretends otherwise.

❛ you can't have control over everything. it just doesn't work. ❜ mina scoots a bit closer, shoulder pressing against amber's as she stares into the fire pit instead of her eyes, in the hopes the lack of eye contact will put amber more at ease. ❛ but it doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong. ❜ she cracks a small smile. ❛ even if i think doing everything right is also a myth. ❜

the joke falls a bit flat, but she's not shocked there. her heart wasn't really in it. she shakes her head, long curls falling from the loose ponytail she’s kept her hair tugged into all day, and brushes her knuckles, translucent in the firelight, gently against amber's. they’re not bruised anymore, not physically, but she knows a healing spell can only do so much. she saw what it looked like before. when she speaks again, her voice is soft. careful. ❛ just because ... just because things aren't going as planned doesn't mean you've done something wrong. you can't live thinking like that. it's paralyzing. ❜ mina's spent far too much time trying and failing to claw her way into some farce of control to watch amber whittle herself down the same way she has.